Chapter 24
She left the bathing chambers with heaviness in her heart.
She couldn’t stop thinking of Arawn. Gods, she was way too attracted to him. There was no denying that. But … it wasn’t simply because of what he looked like. It was how he’d spoken, how he’d shed the armor from himself, and shared his pain with her.
A shame that his heart was set on another.
And beyond that, he was forbidden.
Them being together could never be … not that he was ever an option to begin with. Especially now that he was soon to be king, when his father passed.
He’d be Matched with someone powerful.
Never her.
She didn’t even know she was headed towards the Aviary again until she found herself back out in the snow, marching up the steps as sunset arrived, and the war raged to her left.
She made it to the cliffside, and stared out just in time to see the Eagles rise from the glass dome. One at a time, they tore into the sky. Magnificent, enormous beasts, their bodies like spears as they climbed up, up, up, riders poised in their saddles.
As soon as they reached their peak, they dipped downwards.
And soared straight down the cliffside, making the Descent.
She watched them fall, one by one. Like the tips of arrows, brave and brilliant and so far from what she could ever be.
Her hands trembled.
What if she died?
What if Six was a terrible flier, not at all like Kinlear hoped she would be, and she killed them both?
It didn’t matter to Kinlear. His fate was sealed, his death imminent. But Ezer … Ezer could live.
She could turn and run, right now.
She spun and looked back behind her at Augaurde. A world of white. The war tents spat smoke into the sky, and far below the garrison was alive with activity. Soldiers who had either signed up or been drafted, never wanting to be here in the first place.
But they were here.
They didn’t run away from battle.
They marched straight in to protect people just like her.
‘You’re a coward,’ Ezer told herself.
Because when she turned back around, she imagined every single one of those riders had fallen, splattered against the snow, and then she saw herself among them, and Six’s body broken.
Gasping for breath that would not come, she closed her eyes and tried to push the vision away.
‘Ezer,’ said the wind. ‘Look.’
She opened her eyes as a War Eagle soared past her.
It was glorious, so fast a flight that it sent a gust of wind pushing her backwards.
It screeched, and the sound went through her. It set her soul ablaze.
You could be that way, Ezer told herself. If you weren’t so afraid.
All her life she’d been nothing, and no one.
Forgotten.
Left behind.
But not by Six.
She turned, and suddenly she was running across the snow, towards the waiting Aviary doors. She burst through them, ignoring the glances from the younglings.
She ran until she made it behind the black door, surprised to find it unlocked. She sped down the dimly lit tunnel, and stopped in front of Six’s cage.
And then she curled her hands around the bars and gasped, ‘Why did you choose me? Why?’
Tears poured down her face, and she hated them, every single drop.
‘Tell me why!’
She screamed.
Six didn’t even flinch.
So she marched to the cage door … and found it unlocked. Like Kinlear had known she would find herself back here in the darkness, her heart too drawn to Six to stay away. And Six’s, too drawn to hers to even attempt escape.
‘Why not someone else?’ Ezer asked.
Six blinked up at her from where she lay by her pile of treasures, guarding them with her front paws.
‘I’m not a Rider.’
Six’s tail twitched once. As if to say, I know.
‘And yet you still chose me.’
Another twitch.
‘I won’t do it.’
Six chirruped her beak once, as if to say why not?
‘Because you haven’t flown before,’ Ezer said, to which Six let out a soft growl. ‘It’s the truth, and your fussing isn’t going to change that. Why did you pick me?’
She could have sworn, as Six blinked up at her … the raphon shrugged.
‘You don’t know?’
Two tail twitches.
Ezer sniffled and wiped her tears away. ‘That’s not comforting.’
Six huffed into the shavings.
‘Riders train their entire lives before they make the Descent. And that’s what the King and Queen will wish to see, Six, to approve this partnership. Are you willing to do that?’
Six’s tail lifted.
Paused, as if considering.
And then twitched once.
Yes.
‘Well, I’m not.’
Six just blinked at her innocently, like she hadn’t a clue why Ezer was so concerned. So Ezer crossed the soft shavings and slumped down with her back against the raphon. It was warm, and Six began to purr.
‘I’m nobody,’ Ezer said. ‘I never wanted this.’
Six huffed again, as if to say neither did I.
A vision of five sinking feathers floated into her mind. They sank beneath a dark, endless sea, never to be seen again. Six’s siblings.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ezer said. ‘I know it wasn’t your choice, either.
’ She sighed and wiped her face dry with her sleeve.
‘I have scars, Six.’ She felt the raphon’s hot breath on her cheek.
On her shadow wolf marks. ‘Not these. They’re the kind you can’t see.
The sky is a dangerous place for a girl without wings. ’
Ervos’s words tumbled off her tongue, the first time she’d ever spoken them out loud.
Six paused for a moment, as if she weren’t sure how to respond.
And then Ezer felt two dark wings drape over her shoulders, holding her close. It was so simple, the act. But it made Ezer’s heart twinge. And as Ezer leaned her head back, cradled in Six’s warmth, another vision filled her mind.
She saw Six, soaring alone in the sky.
Shadows swam behind her, making her black fur and feathers even darker.
Six was magnificent. Proud and beautiful, with her enormous black wings outspread as she traversed the sky. Her paws clawed at the air as if she would tear it apart.
But Ezer was not focused on the raphon.
No …
The vision pulled away, until Ezer could see the rider on Six’s back.
She looked fierce – not beautiful, but haunting, with the wind tugging at her dark black braid … and the trio of jagged black scars on her face.
It was Ezer, wild and free, as a rider on Six’s back.
And she was not afraid.
‘I see,’ Ezer said, as the vision broke.
She was breathless, feeling like she’d just been in the sky. Like she and Six were out there, together.
‘What would you say if that vision didn’t come true?’ Ezer asked. ‘What would you say, Six … if I ran from here, tonight? If I never came back?’
The wings tucked tighter around her body, holding her close.
But then …
Six huffed.
And slowly, so slowly … those wings lifted, setting her free.
Ezer turned to find that the raphon had laid her head down, her beak heavy against her pile of treasures.
‘You would let me go?’ Ezer said. ‘You’d let me leave you here alone?’
The raphon huffed again.
And her tail, ever so slightly, twitched once.
So Ezer imagined it for a moment. Standing from the warmth, walking away from the raphon, closing the door shut. Leaving the Citadel and never seeing Six again. Never seeing Arawn or Kinlear or Izill.
The thought of those three ached her, for she’d never had friends before. And they’d come to be exactly that. She imagined those goodbyes would hurt, but she would heal. She was used to being on her own.
But it was the thought of leaving Six that broke her.
It was like watching Ervos ride away on a transport wagon, knowing she’d never see him again.
It was like holding on to a hand that grew colder as it died.
‘I can’t leave you, Six,’ Ezer said, sighing. ‘I won’t.’
Because when she was with the raphon … she was home. For the first time in her life, she knew it was where she was supposed to be.
She leaned her head back against Six’s warm side. She felt the raphon’s heartbeat, steady and true.
‘I will try it. One time,’ Ezer said. ‘But if you drop me …’ Her stomach twisted, and she had to work past the fear again, the image of herself broken in the snow.
Six’s wing tucked tighter, as if she sensed it, too.
As if she would keep that fear at bay. ‘I swear to the gods, Six, if I am ever to fall from your side, you had better catch me.’
Six’s tail twitched once.
Yes.
And with the purring and the warmth, the softness of her wing feathers …
Ezer fell fast asleep.
‘Ezer.’
She found herself back in the labyrinth, the ring of identical tunnels all around.
And in her cloak pocket, she now held the ornate black key.
‘We’ll have to see what you belong to,’ Ezer said as she held the key to the torchlight. She looked up, as if the wind might hear her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be of any help tonight?’
A breath passed, and suddenly the wind sighed past her, pulling the tips of her hair towards the tunnel to her right.
It led her to a door. The wind whispered around its edges, like it was beckoning her to go inside. So, she removed the key from her pocket …
And placed it into the lock.
She glanced back over her shoulder but found no shadows shifting in the darkness. No eyes, blinking back at her, nor the owner to the footsteps she’d seen in the frost, nights ago.
She turned back to the door.
And when she turned the key, the lock clicked.
And the door swung open, silent as a grave.
Inside …
She gasped.
Home.
She was back in the tiny little apartment she shared with Ervos, long ago. The details were muddled, as if she were looking at it through smoke, but she knew the shape and feel of it all, nonetheless.
There was the squat woodburning stove they used to keep warm on the coldest nights.
There was the couch with the worn cushions, the small creaking table that Ervos had placed his feet on, time and again.
The kitchen sink, copper and stained green from the salt air that clung to every bit of Rendegard’s outer town.
Ezer gasped.
There was Ervos, walking through the open doorway of the bedroom. He looked younger, still vibrant with life. Not a hint of the bloodshot eyes she’d grown so used to in his later years.